McMansion

A McMansion is a kind of house.

During the American boom years of the 1980s and 1990s "McMansions" sprouted up in suburban and semi-rural areas as fast as McDonald's outlets. The lightly mocking term stuck. McMansions are large, even too large for their sites, but are built of the same wood-framed post-and-beam construction as unpretentious tract houses, framed in with exterior-grade plywood, which is then covered with power-applied stucco texture, shingling, or pre-assembled panels of clapboard siding with wallboard for the interior "plastering." McMansions are in generic traditional styles, within a cautious range of familiar detailing, not modernist at all. McMansions feature imposing stretches of shingled roof punctuated by dormers and cross-gables, pediments with oculus or "bull's-eye" windows, "Palladian" windows, in which a central arch-headed window is flanked by narrower panes as tall as the imposts of the arch (often termed a "Palladium window" in the American building trades, and Venetian window in Europe.) Often imitation paning is applied to larger panes of glass. McMansions have wings, either ell extensions, or at obtuse angles.

Interior features of McMansions often include the 'Great Room' that is two stories tall, often with a balcony that serves as part of the upstairs hallway. The Great Room may have a "Cathedral Ceiling" following the pitch of the roofline. The "Home Entertainment Center' may occupy a separate room of its own.

McMansions have sweep drives and garages for at least two but commonly more automobiles. Homey details like front porches with baluster railings, are combined with impressive touches of Classicism in the form of cast fiberglass columns and pedimented entrances, lit by carriage lanterns. Exterior lighting is often profuse and varied. McMansions have uplights in the trees.

McMansions often have large gatepiers at the driveway entrances, without a gate or more than a short stretch of vestigial walling. The only outbuilding of a McMansion is the Pool House.

Daily entrance to a McMansion is ordinarily from the garage through the utility rooms into the kitchen, which has a "Service Island' accessible from all sides.

McMansions have every modern convenience: central air-conditioning, fiber-optical cables, central vacuum-cleaning. McMansions are ready for the computer age and are secretly said to be more intelligent than their owners.